OUTSYSTEM

Someone is out to stop
the GSS Intrepid, an interstellar colony ship, from being completed on
schedule and beginning its journey to 82 Eridani. When anti-colonial
activist groups are suspected, Major Tanis Richards, wrongfully
disgraced officer in the field of military intelligence and counter
insurgency, is brought onboard with all due haste.

Events in
Tanis's past have motivated her to leave Sol and start a new life
elsewhere. She soon discerns that more than simple activist groups are
arrayed against the ship and its crew. There are corporations and
governments that have a vested interest in ensuring that the Intrepid
never leaves the Sol System.

Tanis tightens security and fights
political red tape while running up against assassins and mercenaries
sent to the stop her and the Intrepid at every turn. The new friends and
relationships she forges strengthen her resolve to protect the ship and
keep its crew and colonists safe as they endeavor to head outsystem.

Read on for an awesome excerpt from Outsystem!

CHAPTER 1 OPENING

Tanis entered the forward observation lounge on the Steel Dawn III. The windows were crowded with passengers, weary after the two-week voyage from Earth, catching their first glimpses of Mars.

Her HUD identified the passengers and she saw that most were fellow colonists, destined for the Intrepid
and ultimately the world of New Eden. Near one of the windows on the
starboard side stood Patty and Eric, who she had spent some time with
during the voyage.

Threading
the crowd, Tanis walked to the window and stood beside the pair. Eric
looked up at her and smiled a greeting. Patty nodded and pointed toward
the planet.

“You can just make out the ring now.”

Tanis peered out the window and cycled her vision to a higher magnification.

“So you can.”

The
Mars 1 ring was a large orbital habitat which wrapped around the world
like a glistening silver halo. It was over one hundred and eighty
thousand kilometers in circumference, and sixteen hundred kilometers
wide. It rotated at over twenty-two thousand kilometers per hour above
the blue-green planet. On the world below, the Borealis Ocean filled the
viewport, and the large Mariner Valley lakes slowly slipped past the
day/night terminator.

Built
in the twenty-fifth century the ring was a marvel of human engineering
and provided the energy management to terraform and power Mars. The Mars
1 ring was the gateway to the stars. Without it, modern terraforming
techniques would never have been invented.

“Home sweet home,” Eric said.

“Not
exactly.” Patty pointed to her left. “You can see the Mars Outer
Shipyard coming around the ring over there. That’s where the Intrepid is being completed. We’ll be staying on the station or the ship, I imagine.”

The
Mars Outer Shipyard was a thousand-kilometer arc which was tethered to
Mars’s second artificial ring, the Mars Central Elevator Exchange, known
by the locals as the MCEE. That outer ring linked to Mars 1, and from
there massive elevators provided access to the planet below.

Though
it was not the largest planetary superstructure, Tanis always found it
to be one of the most beautiful. The Marsians had opted to build it with
materials that glistened in the sunlight. With all of the orbital
stations and outlying habitats tethered to the MCEE it sometimes
appeared as though the planet had been caught in a celestial cobweb.

“I
can’t make it out,” Eric said after peering out the window for a
minute. “You two keep forgetting I have these organic eyes. Not special
hopped-up mod jobs like yours.”

Patty laughed. “Well, I don’t know how hopped up mine are; the major has the super eyes.”

“Your tax dollars hard at work,” Tanis smiled.

“So how long till we arrive?” Eric asked.

Eric
had only a rudimentary Link to the shipnet. While he could look it up
himself, Patty and Tanis already had the information overlaid on their
retinal HUDs.

“Just over an hour,” Tanis said.

“Doesn’t look like it should take that long.” Eric leaned forward, still trying to make out the shipyards.

Their discussion was interrupted by an announcement over both the shipnet and audible systems.

“All
passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our final
descent into the Mars Outer Shipyards, which the locals call the MOS.”
The captain pronounced the word ‘moss’. “In thirty minutes there will be
two 0g maneuvers separated by a hard 15g burn. We
apologize for that hard burn, but Marsian traffic control has busy
inbound lanes today and we need to clear the space as quickly as
possible.

“During these maneuvers we require you to be in your cabin, and strapped down to your bunk, for your safety.

“Mars Outer Shipyard is a class 1A environmental space with 0.8g centripetal
gravity and a standard temperature of nineteen degrees Celsius. Be sure
to have your customs forms filled out and debark only after the
announcement is given to do so.

“Thank you for flying Dawn Transport. To all of you colonists, good luck, and to everyone else, we hope to see you again.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you ladies after we finish docking,” Eric said.

“You will indeed,” Patty said. “We’ll meet tonight for drinks at that restaurant I mentioned.”

“You going to come, Tanis?” Eric asked.

“I’ll
see. I have to report in and get my assignment by 0800 station time,
but if I’m not busy, I’ll be there.” The military life brought her
comfort, but the last few weeks on the Dawn had given her a taste of what a more relaxed life could be like. It made the offer tempting.

With final farewells the three left the lounge with the other passengers and proceeded to their cabins.

One
of the privileges of rank was that Tanis had a room to herself. She
made certain all of her belongings were secure, and lay down on her
bunk. She didn’t bother to strap down, but did hold on to the rails
along its sides. The ship shuddered several times as it shed all of its
velocityrelative to Mars. The process took several minutes, following which the vessel rotated and the engines fired again.

The
cabin systems displayed a holo count-down and also flashed a warning
that the air would jell to help ease the discomfort of the upcoming
maneuver. The cabin systems knew her body could hold up the strain, so
the nano-injectors didn’t deliver the frame firming nano bots into her
body, but it was quite likely Eric was undergoing the rather
uncomfortable procedure at the moment.

The captain wasn’t lying; the 15g burn
was hard. Tanis’ body weight increased to over a ton and she was
pressed deep into the acceleration cushioning of her bunk as the ship
matched the twenty-two kilometers per second orbit of the Mars Outer
Shipyards. Once that velocity was reached, the fusion engines powered
down, eliminating the gravity their thrust had created. In the resulting
0g Tanis let go of the rails and allowed herself to slowly rise above her bunk as the air thinned out once more.

She could feel the telltale vibrations of thrusters firing as they eased the Dawn into
its external berth on the planet side of the MOS. Once the ship was in
place and latched onto the station, the thrusters slowly phased out
until the physical coupling supplied the ship’s angular momentum. During
that process the ship gradually fell under the centripetal force of the
shipyard and achieved the station-standard 0.8g.

Tanis
let the increasing gravity pull her back down to the bunk. It was an
experience she always enjoyed; a ritual that had persisted since her
first stellar flight with her father some sixty years earlier.

An
announcement came over the shipnet indicating a successful docking. The
passengers were reminded to remain in their cabins until the
debarkation signal was given.

Shortly afterward, the low thud of the passenger and cargo umbilicals linking the Dawn
to the station could be felt through the ship. Fresh air from the MOS
filtered through the vents. Tanis could practically taste the difference
after the stale stuff the Dawn had been recycling over the last few days.

The
debarkation signal came over the shipnet and a glowing green icon
flashed on the door’s holo display indicating that passengers could
leave their cabins. Tanis took her time giving the sparse space a final
check, making certain nothing was left behind. It would give the
corridors a chance to clear out. No point in rushing into a crowd of
people.

The
sounds of other passengers outside her cabin had ceased and Tanis had
just stepped into the corridor when another tremor shook the ship. It
was followed by the roar of an explosion flooding the hall, forcing
Tanis to grasp the doorframe to maintain her footing. A moment of
stillness followed and then alarms began to blare. Tanis set her
auditory systems to filter them out, only to have the telltale whack of
pulse rifles and the chip of beam weapons fill the silence.

In
a single swift motion she dropped her duffle and pulled her pulse
pistol from its holster. She couldn’t imagine who the hell would use
beam weapons on a ship. One shot in the wrong place and it would disrupt
the electrostatic shields and cause explosive decompression.

The sound of high-pitched whines and supersonic booms joined the other weapons fire. Even better, Tanis thought, some idiot was using a railgun!

<Some idiot has a death wish,> Angela commented.

<Except they’re wishing for our deaths,> Tanis replied as she bent to a knee and pulled her lightwand from the duffle.

Angela was attempting to query the shipnet to determine what was going on. <It’s at the dock. Someone blew two of the umbilicals and started firing on passengers as they debarked.>

<That’s going to be a massacre! Have they boarded the ship?> Tanis asked.

<Hard to say, with sensors are jammed in that sector, I’m guessing someone is hiding something... so yes.>

<Your guesses are usually right.>

Angela’s reply was smug. <Of course they are.>

<Can you raise the captain?>

<Shipnet is sporadic, looks like it’s under some viral attack.>

<An all-out assault? This is more than some robbery.>

<Your guess is as good as mine,> Angela responded.

Tanis
took a deep breath and altered her thinking patterns for combat. Any
concern and worry left her as the calm born from being in more
firefights than she could remember took over. Controlled and cool, no
emotion. Feelings got you killed.

Thanks for posting my cover and excerpt! I hope your readers enjoy it even though its science fiction and that may not be their normal bailiwick. I've found a lot of female (and male) readers really enjoy Tanis as she's a strong female character that commands the respect of her colleagues, but doesn't come across as overbearing (or as that other b-word).

Also, there's a romance inside the story that certainly has excited my wife.